


From One Wretched Soul to Another

by Mystletainn



Series: There is No Such Thing As [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Confession, F/F, F/M, Swan Queen Week, mirror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7787104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystletainn/pseuds/Mystletainn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt #1 for Swan Queen Week 2016: Confession</p><p>Set after the events of 4B. Well, not truly. </p><p>It's more of a reimagining of 5A. Or the entire season. Because canon doesn't sit well with me. </p><p>Contains mentions of CaptainSwan, but SwanQueen is endgame. </p><p>I've not tagged our beloved, dashing rapscallion to avoid the 'Hookers.'<br/> </p><p>  <b>Excerpts:</b><br/> <br/><i>"I'll let you in on a little secret, from one wretched soul to another," she whispers with a childlike glee that he'd assumed was all but gone.</i><br/><br/>--<br/> <br/><i>"We are not talking about me."</i></p><p> <br/><i>Figures. He's not exactly the Cricket to whom she bares her soul. Assuming she even has one.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	From One Wretched Soul to Another

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of a series of vaguely related fics for Swan Queen Week 2016. Really late, apologies. I just found out about SQW two days ago, and was having difficulty starting. 
> 
>  
> 
> **I lay no claim to Once Upon A Time and its characters.**

Dank. Dark. Rancid.

Hardly a novelty, he supposes. That's how the Jolly Roger is these days. 

“Bloody hell.”

This is oddly reminiscent of that awful hospital bed, with him bound and hopelessly incapacitated. Hands tied, but not in a good way.

“Good morning to you, too, _Captain_. How wonderful of you to grace me with your presence.”

Not good at all.

Killian squints, struggling past the tiny colorful stars clouding his vision. It only serves to worsen the pounding in his head. He still tingles from the varying degrees of electrocution which he had been subjected to.

“How the tables have turned,” he intones with a grimace.

As if in retribution, another shock shoots through him, a thousand stinging needles piercing his every limb. He trembles, back arching off the metal slab, legs feebly wriggling against the binds, hands scrabbling against the cold surface in search of an anchor. He is a marionette compelled to sway to a sadist's every whim.

The familiarity turns his blood cold. 

And isn't it crippling. The fear.

His mouth swims with copper from his efforts to bottle everything. He stubbornly refuses to translate his trepidation to sound.

She turns the voltage up a notch. His vocal cords follow suit, traitor mouth hanging ajar to deliver a scream.

"Perhaps you are not as mute as you pretend to be."

He swallows, more saliva than blood this time. “Now _there’s_ the blackness to match the fire. Wouldn't want to sully that stellar reputation, would we? _Dark One_.”

A pained groan leaves him unbidden, and he can _see_ the satisfaction coming off of her in waves. He snorts in the face of his waning (false) confidence.

“I've endured far worse.”

His captor smiles, slow and indulgent, pearlescent white stark against crimson. It is almost sweet, had it not been for the insidious gleam in her eyes. Her lips stretch farther apart, pink tongue gliding over teeth. And it's bloody attractive as much as it is alarming.

She swings a leg over him effortlessly, knees flanking his hips, her warmth and weight settling upon his belly; she the cruel rider, he the obedient mount. She caresses his chest, tender, as she had touched once upon a time. That cursed familiarity again.

Her fingers are ice upon his flesh. Upon the fevered, thrumming meat of mere inches beneath. She withdraws.

His heart-- the one no longer within his body-- glows bright red through the black mottling. He hears it pulsing in her palm, feels every phantom beat in his chest. And then truly _feels_ it, when she squeezes the damned thing.

She shimmies down his torso and straddles his thighs, hands following south. Appraising. He can't quite suppress the shiver that runs through him, and she is abominably aware of it, the goddamn witch.

“Still delectably excitable, I see,” she chuckles. 

He grins crookedly. “Well, when you touch me like that, how can I resist?” 

She fixes him with a look of disapproval, one undoubtedly effective on misbehaving whelps. Like her boy. He chooses not to show his amusement at being on the receiving end of it.

Or tries. And fails miserably. 

Nails dig into the skin taut across his ribs, scouring and drawing blood. It is more painful than a measly scratch has any right to be. He _howls_.

The insufferable bitch needs a manicure. He inwardly laughs at the last word. Henry educated him on the intricacies of feminine rituals when Emma had once mentioned getting a ‘mani-pedi.’

 _Women and their strange ways_.

“That's more like it,” he enthuses. “You are nothing but fire under all that finery, aren't you? Masquerading as _good_ , a beast donning sheep's hide? Admittedly, you are a fine actress. But isn't it _sickening_ , all this...playing nice? It just makes your skin _crawl_ , those _heroes_.” He hisses as fingers prod his broken skin. “I know exactly how exhausting this game of masks is. I see you, love. And I understand.” 

And he really does. He understands those hollow, haunted eyes, a reflection of his own. Funny, the dead man sympathizing with his executioner. 

What he doesn't understand is-

“Why am I doing this?” she finishes the thought, like the being of foresight she is fabled to be. “It's simple, really,” she sighs, as if he's supposed to know.

At the lack of response, she plunges her fingers in, not just tearing, no, _penetrating_. And to his abject horror, he finds that he enjoys it. He wonders if he'd just reached his wit's end, so delirious from the pain that he construes it as the very opposite.

"You see, Captain Guyliner," she continues, "your existence is a pathetic waste of space. You have but _one_ task, one that I am particularly invested in, and you _fuck it up_. I've no use for incompetent, swashbuckling fools.”

Is it such a hardship to speak plainly? Stupid Dark Ones and their idiotic riddles. He grits his teeth in irritation. “And what would _that_ be?”

Her hands clench the battered organ anew. He forgoes pretense all together, openly writhing and groaning and gasping for breath. This excursion is by no means more bearable than the last. _Never again_ , he had told himself before. After Milah. After the Red Queen. After the Sorcerer's capture. How wrong he had been. In all three.

It is _he_ that stands before him--not she-- the blasted Crocodile. He recalls his severed hand, the unseeing eyes of his fallen pirate queen, the courtiers of Wonderland, the chilling bite of the gate, the Author's house fading from sight as he had slowly slipped into unconsciousness. Bitterness floods him for time innumerable, loathing and rage for the vile creature, greater resentment toward himself for centuries of powerlessness at the hands of the Dark One, the eternal bane of his existence. At the hands of magical beings, of forces beyond his control or capability.

Then resignation. Painful, pitiful surrender.

Just as he is about to beg for an end, he feels it. Her magic, warm, dark, and intoxicating. It is eerily calming, and despite his strong disdain toward all things supernatural (mostly fairies and power-crazed sorcerers, the scaly variety in particular), his lips part of their own accord, muscles relaxing as invisible hands soothe his wounds. 

He is very much certain of whom he hates the most.

“As much as it _pains_ me to admit, you and I have much in common, my dear pirate." She flicks her wrist, conjuring the infamous dagger. She eyes his neck for a few seconds, then presses the curved blade against his collarbone. She slides it lower, the pointed tip kissing one of his nipples, cold on cold. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses and averts his eyes, as if doing so would deny the arousal inspired by the action.

“Hm, not quite," she murmurs absently. She circles each hardened bud, pricking their tops every so often, with knife and finger alike. Her face takes on a contemplative mien as she studies him closely, carefully cataloguing each whimper, each twitch, each pleasured reaction. 

She sniffs disdainfully, as though he were some failed experiment. “So responsive. Charming would have been pleased.” She blinks, lips falling into a frown. “If he weren't such a sanctimonious prick.” 

“Wha-“

“I see you, _love_. And I understand,” she mocks. “I understand, truly. Your predilection for the same sex is nothing to be ashamed of. It may have been frowned upon in the old world, but not in this.” 

The insinuation rankles him like none other, turning his face beet in equal parts indignation and embarrassment. He'd have jabbed a finger or two, preferably at her eyeballs, if he weren't so indisposed. He settles for craning his neck.

“Whatever you're implying-“

She scoffs. “Oh, I'm not implying anything. I have a…what do kids say these days…ah, yes, functioning gaydar. Imagined detection devices notwithstanding, it takes one to know one.” She pauses to let it sink in. “But enough about that. You're not on trial for sodomy.”

“I don-“

The dagger suddenly burns, leaving him little choice but to gasp at the contrast. He shamelessly arches his back as far as the binds allow, seeking greater contact, and she lets him. With a smirk, she pushes the searing metal into the space between his nipples. By the Davy Jones, does it hurt but it is _goddamn good_. Before he could rein in his lechery, he finds himself entertaining fantasies of her...exploring other places, delving into certain unchartered cavities. Maybe his hook should make an appearance. Gods, he must be under some thrall to be stirring up such...filth.

She increases the diameter of her circles, tracing slow figure eights around the sensitive nubs, all the while ensconcing his heart in the heat and pressure of her claws. Pure, painful, delicious torture. 

“I'd forgotten how much of a pain whore you are.” She punctuates the statement with a harsh smack to his crotch.

“Son of a-“

He doesn't recognize the sound that is ripped from him. He hadn't realized he was capable of producing such a noise. It is ungainly and desperate. Nigh inhuman, even.

She fondles and squeezes without hesitation, leaving him in a perpetual state of arousal, dangling precariously at the edge of the precipe. To think that the demon would prefer purgatory. He resumes his dreadful symphony, and earns an evil cackle. Sadist, indeed. 

“I'll let you in on a little secret, from one wretched soul to another,” she whispers with a childish glee that he'd assumed was all but gone. “You are unworthy. Pond scum. Yet she chose _you_. She chose you, undeserving as you are.” 

Her hold on his sex grows impossibly tighter. What a dilemma he is thrown into, torn between the fear of castration and that of the cessation of her stimulation.

He wants to scream. He wants to beg for more. He wants to remind her that she is no better than he is. That she is even worse. But that sick corner of his mind that secretly revels in the wickedness keeps his trap shut, for fear of being denied her brutal touch.

“She chose you, and I've come to terms with that,” she states, louder now. “What I cannot overlook, however, is your ungratefulness. She isn't some legendary conquest or precious loot you've plundered. Yet you insist on treating her as such. Like she is something you are entitled to. Like she is _nothing_.”

Granted, he is not the most romantic of lovers...

Bugger that. Presumptuous quim. “That’s bollocks! I _love_ her!”

"Oh, I'm sure.”

“Because being _the Dark One_ suddenly makes you an expert on love.”

That earns him a punch to the nose. The infuriating woman has one hell of a right hook. More blood. Fantastic.

“We are not talking about me.”

“We are not, but we might as wel— _youmadbitch_!” Figures. He's not exactly the Cricket to whom she bares her soul. Assuming she even has one.

At any rate, he's bound to lose his jewels. He feels the hot liquid trickling between his legs, coating the air with the musk of rust. Never mind reproduction; he'd rather not be a eunuch if it can be helped.

“If you love her as you so claim, then why the hell are you hurting her.” It is completely devoid of inflection, but the ire is there, simmering just beneath the deceptive calm.

‘Isn't it the one we love that we hurt the most?’ is at the tip of his tongue, but…oh. _Oh_. So that's what this is about.

His own wrath unfurls within him at the realization, libido now fully taking the stern. The gall of this... _monster_ , accusing him of atrocities _she_ had committed.

He knows, after all. He remembers all too well, that fateful evening. That abomination of a smile. Those heartbreaking sobs in the dead of the night, when she thinks no one can hear her. And her eyes, her beautiful eyes, so sad and so tearful and so hurt.

“Hurt her? _I_ hurt her? No, no, no. That's all on you, _Your Majesty_.” 

Her expression is absolutely incredulous. “What?”

“From one wretched soul to another,” he mirrors her words without malice or condescension, “I know. I _knew_. I struggled with it for a damn long while but I knew.” 

He inhales.

"You see, there's a difference between a choice and a remedy. She didn't _choose_ me; she _settled_. And she carved that decision in stone and sealed her fate when you selfishly decided to usurp her role.” 

Bloody bleeding nose. Another intake of breath.

“I'm not enough. Never bloody was, I reckon. But if you think for one secon-“

“I don't,” she answers quietly. A rueful smile. “Your ineligibility neither affirms nor invalidates mine.”

A silence descends upon them, damning and stifling. And Killian…Killian doesn't know what to say.

“I just want her to be happy. To be wanted and loved,” she breathes at long last.

Gone is the demon of war, the scourge that damned an entire realm. No Evil Queen, no Dark One. Just the lonely, broken girl, ill-fitting fragments painstakingly glued together by the inescapable darkness and a singular desire for love. A laughable semblance of wholeness. 

“She doesn't deserve anything less. She doesn't deserve _this_ ,” she continues, moving her hand to encompass herself from head to toe (or, well…given her current position…torso).

He thinks of Cora ( _Is she broken yet?_ ), of the man that whelped her into existence (he has no right to be called 'father,' much like Killian's own), and of the countless others who had failed her. He shouldn't feel sorry, shouldn't want to comfort her. Yet his heart aches. And no, his eyes certainly aren't wet. Again, the irony is not lost on him.

His bruised ego be damned. “She can never be happy. Not with me. Not like this.”

“Try harder.” Not angry. Tired. So very tired. 

He doesn't blame her. Doesn't say another word. Doesn't mind the solitary stream down his cheek. Doesn't complain when she buries her face in his chest. Doesn't…anything. 

He himself is exhausted. 

“The Savior she may be, but not mine.” 

Killian recognizes the duality easily enough.

When she lifts her head, it is with grace and composure of the vicious monarch that she is. Which he thinks is better, more manageable than her raw self. The moment of vulnerability had passed, a lamp having burned its last light, and… _this is the end_ , he thinks. 

She brings the blackened organ to her lips, mouthing unintelligible mutterings. Incantations? A eulogy?

He can't bring himself to care.

Death shouldn't be so bad. _Centuries_. He had lived for centuries. 

One last compression to reduce his heart to dust.

He hears the unmistakable sound of ropes breaking. Not that it matters. He has resigned himself to his fate.

Giving her a parting glance and his best attempt at a reassuring smile, he closes his eyes and braces himself for the all-consuming pain. 

It never comes. 

“Regina-“

“Try harder.”

※

Killian stumbles out of bed. Nausea and a headache like none other greet him ‘Good morning.’ How sweet.

How much of a drink had he had last night?

He fumbles for his hipflask, which turns out to be blissfully empty. As are the bottles strewn all over his cabin.

His entire stock of good rum drained dry and nary a taste or thought...

He feels as though he'd forgotten something…something important. Besides the rum. 

Memory fails him. He shakes his head, not needing or wanting any additional pain. As it is, his brain is still a raft at the mercy of a storm at sea. 

There are more pressing matters at hand.

Such as Swan. Emma. After dinner, she told him to leave. She needed time. Or was it space? Whatever it had been, he heeded her wishes. He left.

Perhaps it might not have been the brightest of ideas.

He needs to make things right.

He may not be what she needs. Or what she wants.

But that won't stop him from trying harder.

※

_"Come morning, you will awaken in your cabin with a hangover and no recollection of the evening besides leaving the diner and boarding the Jolly Roger. You will not remember my presence here and everything that had transpired between us during that timeframe. And lastly, you will try harder to make Miss Swa-_ Emma _. To make Emma happy."_


End file.
